Vanilla Milkshakes
by UnluckyAmulet
Summary: Oneshot. Yomi, meet Tomo.


Disclainer: I do not own Azumanga Daioh!

Haven't written an Azumanga fic in a while, so here's just a fun little interpretation of what Tomo and Yomi's first meeting could have been like. Beware!

Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

"This is..."

"Remember this, Yomi?"

Yomi Mizuhara stared down at the photo album that was currently being waved in her face at rapid speeds.

"Tomo, I can't even see what the hell you're doing."

Tomo obliged the unspoken request and slowed down. Yomi blinked.

"It's us."

"Yeah! Us, all the way back from kindergarten!"

Yomi took in the picture of her five-year-old self, who looked like she was in the middle of being shocked out of her skin by Tomo, who was also five and sitting on top of a gigantic and rather menacing-looking black dog, huge even as a puppy.

"Hey, you two!" said Kagura, spotting Yomi and Tomo pouring over the pictures. "What are you two looking at?"

"Look!" Tomo said, jabbing a finger at the photo album. "This is me and Yomi! This is back when she was thin!"

Yomi responded to this by screeching angrily and chasing Tomo around the room for a few minutes while Tomo laughed her annoying laugh, annoyingly. By the time they returned to Yomi's desk, Osaka, Chiyo and Sakaki were also now peering at the pictures.

"Is this your dog, Tomo?" inquired Chiyo, pointing at the picture of Tomo sitting on the black dog. Tomo grinned.

"Yeah! That's the first day I got Kuro! Look at how tiny he is!"

"That's tiny?" repeated Kagura, doubtfully. Sakaki was busy mooning over the picture of a puppy to pay any attention.

"It looks a bit like me and Tadakichi-san!" piped up Chiyo, smiling fondly at the memory of her beloved dog.

"Wha' about this one?" asked Osaka, gesturing to one opposite the Kuro picture.

The picture was again of five-year-old Yomi and Tomo. Tomo had sand all the way up to her elbow and seemed to have gotten into an argument with a paintball gun, judging by her rainbow-streaked pinafore dress. Yomi was looking a bit bemused, but, surprisingly, rather happy. Yomi was holding a collage in her hands, although it was hard to tell what it was of, considering it was incredibly messy, covered with paint, glue, sequins and colored feathers. A few of which seemed to have found their way into Tomo's hair and on the front of her dress.

"Ya look kinda like a colorful bird, Tomo." remarked Osaka, smiling dreamily to herself. Chiyo glanced at Osaka with wide eyes as a blissfully vacant look came onto Osaka's face, who was probably imagining some kind of Tomo-harpy, flying through the clouds and terrifying small children.

"This," announced Tomo proudly, "is me and Yomi's first ever encounter!"

"I'll bet that was interesting." smirked Kagura, amused.

Yomi rolled her eyes.

"Yes. That's one way of putting it..."

* * *

"Ready, Koyomi?"

Koyomi nodded. She was definitely ready.

Koyomi Mizuhara was starting school, and from the moment her mother had announced it to her, five-year-old Yomi had begun studying the schools she saw on TV carefully. As far is she could tell, it had teachers, desks and lots of other kids. And crayons. Yomi was actually quite excited, since when you're five, going to a new place and meeting lots of kids seems exciting enough.

So Koyomi as utterly, utterly prepared for school when her mother pushed open the door to her classroom.

"YAAAAY!"

"Tomo-chan, please STOP!!"

Or...not.

Koyomi stood in the doorway of her new classroom, staring with utterly, unapologetic shock at the demon that she was apparently going to be spending a long time in the same room with.

A demon in question was a brunette, with mid-length hair. Although she was wearing a uniform like everyone else, hers was currently splattered in either paint or melted crayons. She was also running around like a demented squirrel, giggling wildly. Koyomi could only stare as the teacher (a kindly-looking woman with long blonde hair) eventually gave up trying to catch the brown-haired demon and turned to see Koyomi and her mother standing in the doorway.

"Ah, you must be Mrs. Mizuhara?" she inquired politely, trying to smooth her hair down. "I am Miss Azuma. And you must be Koyomi!"

Koyomi nodded, slightly comforted by the warm smile.

"I'll get Koyomi settled in right away." Miss Azuma went on to Koyomi's mother, smiling. "I'm sure you need to get on to work."

"Yes, I'd better go," smiled Koyomi's mother, checking her watch. She smiled at Koyomi. "Bye-bye, honey. I'll see you later."

With that, Koyomi's mother disappeared, in a clip-clop of heels. Miss Azuma turned to Koyomi.

"Well, Koyomi dear, we have lots that you can do, if you wan- TOMO-CHAN, PLEASE DON'T CLIMB UP THE BOOKSHELF!"

* * *

Koyomi spent quite a lot of her first day of school standing around and staring.

She had befriended a couple of other girls, although really, the term 'befriended' was a bit of an exaggeration. She just kind of gravitated towards the most normal looking girls she could find, and when you compared them to Tomo, who was now enthusiastically doing what could loosely be defined as painting, but it looked more like she was trying to slice apart the easel using her paintbrush.

"Um, Tomo-chan..." said Azuma-sensei hesitantly, peering at the swirling mess of color, splattered twice and spread on so thickly in the middle it nearly tore a hole in the paper. "What is it you're painting, sweetie?"

Tomo pointed at it and grinned.

"It's a moose!"

"A-ah...it's...lovely."

"I know!" laughed Tomo. Then a positively manic grin formed on her face. "And now I'm gonna draw him driving a train!"

"That girl is so dumb." announced Kiko, one of the girls that Yomi was playing tea parties with, nodding authoritatively. "Animals can't drive _trains_."

"My mom said that Tomo's mom lets her eat too much candy and that's why she's like that." replied Aya, the second girl, sticking out her tongue slightly as she concentrated intently on pouring invisible tea into Kiko's cup.

They both glanced at Koyomi, who clearly expected to contribute something.

"She's... too noisy." ventured Koyomi, trying to sound as certain as Aya and Kiko had.

However, she didn't really feel like it was a very nice thing to do, saying mean things about Tomo when Tomo hadn't actually done anything to any of them. While Koyomi had decided to sit with Aya and Kiko because they were quiet and very grown-up, like Koyomi, she couldn't help but feel like things were a little too...still. Apparently, there were very strict rules to playing tea parties, because Aya kept reminding Koyomi of what to do, and they didn't really ever seem to do anything else. The way they talked got on Koyomi's nerves- like they knew it all and had said the same things over and over.

Tomo, on other hand, seemed completely unable to focus on anything. Koyomi watched her as she whizzed from object to object, and kept yelling and jumping around with excitement. While Koyomi had decided Tomo was obviously completely weird, she made whatever it was she was doing look _much_ more fun than playing tea parties.

Also, Kiko kept hogging the sparkly bead necklace, which was really annoying.

It was nearly lunchtime when Koyomi first spoke to Tomo.

She had gone over to the sandpit to retrieve some sugar paper, and noticed that Tomo was apparently doing her best to empty the sandbox of all the sand she possibly could. Chihiro, one of Tomo's friends, was watching her anxiously.

"Um, Tomo-chan, I don't think that's allowed..." ventured Chihiro cautiously, as Tomo went over to the water tank and fished out the blue plastic watering can before coming back. She plunged it into the sandbox, apparently trying to use it like a bucket and move as much sand out of the way as possible.

"But I can't see it!" whined Tomo, pouring the sand back out of the watering can (most of it getting on the floor) with a dismayed expression. "It was here a second ago!"

"What are you doing?" Koyomi asked, before she could stop herself. By now, Aya and Kiko had followed Koyomi, presumably to see what was taking so long to get the sugar paper. Chihiro glanced at Tomo before explaining sheepishly,

"Tomo-chan's trying to empty the sandbox."

"You can't empty it with a watering can, can you?" Koyomi asked, wondering if anything was possible as long as there was somebody insane enough to attempt it.

"But there's a purple dinosaur in here, I swear!" Tomo insisted, more sand spilling messily over the floor as she buried her arm deeper, looking at Chihiro. "Tell her! Tell her about the purple dinosaur!"

"You're stupid, Tomo." announced Kiko abruptly, with clear distaste. Aya nodded in agreement.

Tomo thought about that for a moment, and then casually hit Kiko with a plastic watering can.

"WAAAAH!"

"What's going on NOW?" Azuma-sensei demanded, running over despite her long floral skirt and crouching down next to Aya. "What happened?"

"T-Tomo hi-h-hit meeee!" wailed Kiko, who was no slumped on the floor, pressing her knuckles to her eyes. "She's a mean girl!"

Yomi thought she was being a little melodramatic- it was only a plastic watering can, after all.

"You called me STUPID!" yelled Tomo, indignantly, stomping her feet and looking as though a tantrum was impending. "YOU'RE stupid!"

"Is that true?" Azuma-sensei asked, looking from Yomi to Kiko.

Kiko kind of mumbled and shuffled her feet, not used to being asked a serious question by a grown-up. Koyomi, however, being the mature girl that she was always told she was, looked back.

"Yes, she did." said Yomi, feeling very important. "Tomo said there was a purple dinosaur and then Kiko called her dumb."

"STUPID!" shouted Tomo, whether she was correcting Yomi or merely shouting was anybody's guess.

"I see." sighed Azuma-sensei. "Kiko-chan, if you could just stop crying for a moment-"

But Azuma-sensei's instruction was cut off by the clear ringing shrilly.

"Lunchtime!" chorused several voices of the other children at once.

"YAY!" Tomo cheered, pulling her arm out of the sandpit.

The children then filed noisily out of the room, and glancing back at Azuma-sensei (Kiko's injury seemed to have been forgotten after the bell rang) Koyomi had never seen somebody look so relieved to be in an empty room before.

* * *

At lunchtime, it was a little intimidating, being surrounded by older kids in a huge white room. Teachers herded the kindergartens towards the square tables, as though they might wonder out of the room if left unescorted. Koyomi, sensing Aya and Kiko did not appreciate her truth-telling earlier, moved away from them in the queue and found herself automatically walking after Tomo, who was busy trying to open her lunchbox.

"So," Koyomi said, when they had all sat down. "Was the purple dinosaur in there?"

"What dinosaur?" Tomo asked her, looking confused.

"The one in the sandbox." Koyomi reminded her.

Tomo looked blank.

"The one you wanted." tried Koyomi.

Still nothing.

"You were looking for it?"

"Milk!" shouted Tomo, not listening to tedious, forgotten dinosaur stories.

"What?" Koyomi asked, puzzled.

The question was answered when a lunch lady came past, handing cartons of milk to each kindergarten. Cries of joy or indignation rang out as the children were given cartons, and several voices began immediately trying to find somebody who had the flavor they wanted.

"Chocolate." said Tomo, turning the pale brown carton this way and that. Then she frowned, briefly. "I wanted vanilla!"

"Vanilla?" Yomi asked, looking up from inspecting her own carton, which was a pale yellow color.

"It's yummy!" Tomo told her, importantly. "I like that one the best! There's banana and strawberry too."

Then her eyes drifted to Koyomi's carton. "Hey! You got one!"

"I did?"

"Trade you!" insisted Tomo, holding out hers.

Yomi, who adored chocolate, handing it over with no hesitation. Tomo happily took hers, then frowned again as she tried to locate the silver foil gap. Yomi watched her, hoping that Tomo didn't squeeze the carton so hard it burst everywhere or anything. It seemed to be the kind of thing she'd do.

"You have sand on-" Yomi began, as Tomo flipped her milk carton the right way up.

"What's your name?" interrupted Tomo, stabbing angrily at the silver circle.

"Koyomi Mizuhara." replied Koyomi, using the same kind of voice she used when she answered the phone. Tomo, however, did not seem as impressed by Koyomi's grown-up voice as she was.

"Koh-yo-mee Mee-zoo-haa-raa." recited Tomo back at her, testing the words out. She screwed up her nose.

"What?" Yomi asked, as Tomo pulled an array of ridiculous facial expressions.

"It's too long!" said Tomo, decisively. Yomi was just trying to decide whether to be indignant about this or not, when Tomo added, "I'll just call you Yomi from now on."

"From now on?" repeated Yomi, blinking.

"Yeah!" answered Tomo, as if this was the most natural thing in the world. "We're friends now, right?"

Then she finally managed to jab the straw through the gap, and let out a joyous shriek. Strangely, Yomi didn't flinch this time. It might have been just because Tomo had been shrieking all day and she was beginning to realize this was what Tomo did, but it might also because she was contemplating her new name and how easily Tomo had given her the label of her "best friend".

"Yomi..." she repeated, trying it out.

"Hee-hee! Look! Look!"

Glancing over at Tomo, who was now blowing gigantic milky bubbles in her drink, Yomi smiled and sipped hers.

It felt like a good fit.

* * *

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Hope you liked! :)


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